


Rainbow's End

by deletingpoint



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bonfires, Christmas Fluff, F/F, Meet-Cute, Rainbows, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deletingpoint/pseuds/deletingpoint
Summary: Peggy is searching for a Christmas tree, Angie is looking for the rainbow's end
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Rainbow's End

**Author's Note:**

> idea came from a friend, thank you!

“Where the hell is it now?” Peggy tries to get the GPS working again. “Just go into the woods and get us a Christmas tree, Peggy! Aunt Peggy, please! We’ll make gingerbread cookies while you’re out! Damn kids and damn Jarvis. I could be home getting a nice drink and preparing my presentation for the third, but no, I had to say yes to coming here,” she sighs and leans on a tree trunk. It’s not like she has to take the exact tree on the coordinates, right? She can just set something else that pays the same. She could drive into the town and buy one on the streetcorner. Who needs fancy “pay for the tree you cut and marked” app or whatever? She could just take one and no one would notice.

A crow caws in the distance.

“Okay then, last time, why can’t I see it?” She looks around again and finally sees the birchtree a little higher than herself hidden in the midst of others. The coordinates match. She pockets the phone and gets closer, gripping her hand saw a little tighter.

“Stop right there!” a woman’s voice calls. She freezes.

Then turns around and grits her teeth: “I am paying for it, all legal!”

“Huh?” the woman, cheeks rosy from the chill and hair a tangled mess under her reindeer hat asks and gestures towards something on the ground with her shovel. What is she doing with a shovel?

“Nah, already got mine, I meant that spot is mine. It’s the end of the rainbow and I saw it first.”

“Excuse me?” she doesn’t know whether to laugh or well, stand in stunned silence. She peeks towards the sky though and there really is a rainbow. Must be a lot warmer than she thought.

“Shoo!” the woman gets her attention again when she walks closer, shovel over the shoulder and making a shooing motion with her entire body.

Peggy almost lifts up her saw before realizing how stupid it would be. It’s not like the crazy lady is here to bury her body.

“Ugh, are you incapable of moving? Career lady, huh?”she basically stumps on Peggy’s toes with her enormous rubber boots when she crowds into her place and hits the shovel hard in the ground. Helping it deeper with her foot. And then she’s digging, her long skirt flying with the motions.

Peggy looks back to the skies. It’s raining very lightly, none of the promised snow anywhere near. The rainbow’s still visible, although it’s starting to fade.

“Are you… are you seriously digging at the rainbow’s end?” she asks more from herself, but hears a low grunt as an answer. “You do know that rainbows don’t have an end, right? It really doesn’t work like that?”

“Hey, English, how about you help me instead of telling me what I can or can’t do?”

“English? I can’t dig with a saw you know!”

“Well I don’t know your name and you won’t leave,” she zips her fleece jacket, the sun has disappeared again and the rainbow is fully gone now, “so how about you do something useful. It’s still mine though,” she narrows her eyes at Peggy.

“It’s Peggy Carter.” Peggy finds herself saying, curiosity getting the best of her.

“Full name. You a lawyer or something?”

“Environmental law,” she says offhandedly.

The woman whistles and looks back over her shoulder, eyes sparkling from rain or fresh air.

“Good for you, saving the planet and all, huh? So what were you doing stealing a Christmas tree?”

“Not stealing, like I said! Was going to pay for it, it’s government sanctioned to _prevent_ stealing...”

“Yada-yada, I know, got mine from my own back garden but doesn’t mean I don’t know about things, okay? Damn it, your tree’s root is on the way! Just cut it off already.”

She steps backwards, bumping into Peggy. Her hair tickles. She turns around and for a moment Peggy is lost.

In those eyes that is.

There’s sparkles.

Rainbows.

And so much rain in them.

Her heart’s beating just a tiny bit faster than usual. Only a little, nothing like drumming or a tango. Nope.

“Oh, hello, you’re pretty,” the woman says against Peggy’s neck.

“Umm, ah, right,” Peggy steps back and goes to the tree.

“You’re holding it wrong, Peggy Carter,” the woman sighs and seems a little out of breath. Impatient? Pretty... Not like it’s the first time someone has said it.

“I am not holding it wrong, I was just taking a stance,” she throws over shoulder, hearing a little snort. She holds onto the tree with her left hand and starts sawing with the right. It goes a lot quicker than she anticipated. Pretty? _Her_ eyes are pretty… Then the saw gets stuck.

“You’re almost done, Peggy Carter,” a chin lean on her shoulder.

“Will you, will you stop calling me that!?”

“What? Peggy Carter? It’s your name, Peggy Carter,” she winks at her and holds her hands to give the saw a better grip.

If Peggy’s going to get a heart attack in the middle of the woods it will be the fault of this, this….  
“I don’t even know your name,” she whispers.

“Angie,” Angie lets go of her, “go on, I’ll be cheering you on on your quest for the legal Christmas tree, English.”

Damn it.

She dives her frustration into sawing and a minute later it’s done. She grabs from the bottom and slides it further away.

Angie’s rubbing her hands.

“I can get to my gold now!” she starts digging again.

Peggy looks at her. The determination on her face is beautiful, but she can’t be serious?

“Angie? Are you alright? I mean, uh, even if there’s gold by some miracle, it’s goblin gold? It won’t last, you have to know that, right?”

There’s only the sound of a shovel hitting the dirt, hole getting deeper and deeper. Suddenly Angie throws the shovel away, kneeling on the ground. “I don’t… I saw it! I saw it end right here! I know, I know rainbows don’t have an end in the ground, but I saw it so clearly and there’s nothing! Nothing here at all! Why did I, why am I so stupid!” she doesn’t shout, but her voice is desperate and lost and Peggy sits on the ground to hug her tight.

“I don’t know why I got so convinced there’s something here...”

“Maybe you just didn’t want to live with the regret of what could’ve been?” Peggy whispers in her hair and holds her closer. Angie shrugs. Or at least tries to.

“Maybe. Thanks,” she looks at Peggy. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, thumb grazing Peggy’s skin. Like a fairy touch. “Pretty. Your eyes, they seem like… huh,” there’s a smile on the corner of Angie’s lips and she seems lost in thoughts again.

“What?” Peggy asks, but Angie smiles again and shakes her head.

She gets up, reaching her hand for Peggy to grab.

“What?” she asks again when they’re standing.

“Nothing,” Angie says and it sounds like something but Peggy leaves it. For now.

“So, Peggy Carter, you need help with that not-stolen-tree? I need a new solstice fire though. I know, it’s 23rd and I already had one yesterday but after today I need a new one. You staying with Jarvis, right? Saw the cars yesterday. I’m on the way, so wanna come help me light it?”

“I, I’m by car. On the road, that way.” Peggy nods towards the opposite direction.

Angie’s smile fades. “Oh. I’ll see you around then? Maybe? The missis invited me for tomorrow so we’ll see there I guess...”

“Yeah,” Peggy’s about to turn away, but she doesn’t want to live with regrets of what could’ve beens.

“Heey, how about we get this tree to my car and then I can join you?”

“And come back here in the night? Yeah, how about we get this tree and you’re just gonna give me a lift instead. I don’t live in the middle of a swamp you know.”

“Well, judging by your boots,” Peggy starts but Angie shoves her on the side and they walk on the road fast. Almost as fast as she cut the tree.

There’s tense silence in the car. It’s not raining anymore, but the mist seems to be close enough. Angie just looks at Peggy and gives directions.

Her eyes making Peggy’s skin heat up.

They’re at a little old house in five minutes. There’s a garden and a view to the forest. Probably how Angie saw the rainbow’s end.

“I’ve got some old furniture pieces at the shed that need to be burnt, you wanna help me get them to the fire?” Angie asks when getting out of the car.

“Sure.”

“Oh, wait, I’ll get you another jacket, don’t want to ruin this,” she runs into the house and comes back with and old black coat and a box of matches.

“Hope it doesn’t smell too bad,” she throws it and Peggy and goes to the shed. It smells vaguely like Angie. Like bonfire and rain.

“Come on,” Angie waves at her. Peggy smiles and runs closer.

They get the start for the fire up and Angie shoves old newspapers between the laminated wood.

“You know you’re not really allowed to burn these?” Peggy asks only a little jokingly.

“And yet, the cities won’t stop their fireworks.”

“It’s really not about who’s more at fault,” Peggy starts without thinking.

“You talk about climate change? I love that you’re trying,” Angie sets the wood more upwards now.

“You don’t think there’s point?”

She shrugs. “Maybe I just don’t care about humankind that much. The Earth will move on, adapt, turn into something else and live on. Until the Sun eats it and then there’s gonna be a big fire and then the black nothing and then something entirely new we aren’t even capable of imagining.”

“I don’t believe you don’t care, you know,” Peggy barely knows her and yet she knows this, “besides, it won’t be just humans losing, all life as we know it will change...”

“Yes. As we know it,” Angie gives her a mixed look of sadness and excitement, “as I said, I love you for trying,” she says in a hushed voice.

Peggy almost doesn’t hear the ‘for trying’ part.

And now her heart really stops. And there’s the tango again.

“But for now we are going to light this fire and celebrate the winter solstice. Would you do the honors?” Angie bows to her, offering the box of matches.

She takes it and lights one.

“Come on, to the paper and let’s make it into pyre for all the troubles worrying us.”

Peggy looks at her and lights the fire. The flames come to life almost instantly. The paper being eaten quick, but since there’s a lot of it it’s enough to light the cardboards and when the wood is embraced by the heat it starts burning slow but steady and soon there’s beautiful big flames. Eating away all the troubles. It looks exactly like that.

“Thank you,” Angie leans on her, hugging her with one hand.

“For what?” she wants to thank her instead.

“For coming, for being, lighting the fire,” there’s silence.

Filled with burning fire and breathing.

“You’ll come tomorrow, right?” Peggy finally asks.

“Of course. I love Christmas. Jarvis is crazy with his amazing food. Who washes the dishes though?” she marvels silently.

“I think they have a dishwasher,” Peggy whispers. Why does that sound like a delicate secret just between the two of them?

Angie laughs.

“You celebrate both the solstice and Christmas?” Peggy wonders after the laughter fades.

“Of course. Just because I don’t believe in baby Jesus doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate Christmas lights. Do you?”

“What? Believe? No, not like that.”

“See? And yet we all believe in something. Need to. You believe in making the world a better place, Jarvis believes in soufflé and his wife. His wife believes in God as an unknown power, the kids believe in Santa Claus. I believe in gold at the end of the rainbow.”

„Thought there was nothing there?” Peggy frowns.

Angie strokes her face and looks at her. There’s fire mirroring in her eyes. She leans on and kisses Peggy on her cheek.

It feels like mulled wine warming her entire body. Like a fire burning all the worries.

„Was that alright?” Angie asks with a whisper and she can’t do anything but nodding.

She’s enveloped in a hug, Angie’s lips brushing against her ear.

“You’re my gold at rainbow’s end, Peggy Carter.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope it wasn't too weird! and have a beautiful year! :)


End file.
